Investing is hard enough in a good market.
Imagine how hard it is in a broke world, with dead retail and consumers.
But, we know that’s not true.
Consumers may never be as well off as @andykessler says (always a must read), but they are never as dead as the media tells you. I love this part:
In 1991, a megabyte of memory was $50, amazing at the time. Given its memory, today’s 32-gigabyte smartphone would have cost $1 million back then, certainly an exclusive item for the wealthy. Heck, even 10 years ago, 32 gig cost 10 grand. But no one could build it—volume was needed to drive down both cost and size and attract a few geeks to write some decent apps. So it wasn’t until there was a market for millions of smartphones that there was a market at all. I just bought a terabyte drive for $62 to rip all my Blu-Ray movies, and with Dolby 5.1 sound we all have private screening rooms too.
True enough, if you have $2.4 million or so in cash you can drive a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport. But it’s just fashion. Even a $16,500 Ford Focus can hit 80 on the highway or get stuck in the same traffic as the rich person’s ride. Plus, it comes with what used to be expensive luxuries like side air bags, antilock brakes, GPS guidance and voice-activated SYNC.
Yes, the wealthy can strut around in more foo foo Jimmy Choos and Harry Winston pendants, but so what? That’s all they’ve got left. Being envious of someone’s nice outfit is no way to go through life. Last I checked, envy is noted above gluttony on the list of deadly sins. And by the way, I think Larry Page drives a Prius, a different type of fashion.
Retail is not dead, it is shifting and companies like Best Buy $BBY are dying gradually (a great read and so true ).
For every company dying gradually, there are hundreds growing fast.ly :)
Thank god for Best Buy and miserable people.
We are not becoming a nation of financial services companies. No we are a nation of financial companies. All these companies do is recycle money. The result is no useful products and services are being produced or sold. The idea that the bedrock of the united states economy can be a country of bankers financial planners financial researchers dealing with numbers marketing consultents’ lawyers is completly false. I could go on and on but I need not. The intangable economy of sorts must be replaced with a real economy that produces or provides useful products and services that are really needed. Otherwise we will end up with a few bright CPA’s with master degrees siting behind desks making a good living and everybody else cleaning the carpeting and emptying the wast paper baskets. For 6 dollars an hour. Every parents vision of a good job for their their children is someone sitting in front of a computer at some bank. Whats wrong with this picture everything